Saturday, September 19, 2009

Shut Out In Pitcher's Hell: Angels 2, Rangers 0

Scott Kazmir finally collected a win in his third try as an Angel, blanking the reeling — and oddly, lately punchless — Rangers in Arlington. In the current 1-6 home stand, the Rangers have scored a grand total of 11 runs, while being shut out four times. Minus two of their best players — Josh Hamilton and Michael Young — the results were maybe not so surprising. Nevertheless, it represents a record for the Rangers, who have been shut out at home four times in a home stand for the first time in Texas history; you'd have to go back to the 1984 squad to find a team shut out as many as three times in the same home stand.

The Angels parlayed Torii Hunter's RBI single and Vlad's solo homer into a win, and even managed to survive another outing by Brian Fuentes for the save; but it's worth mentioning that he was facing the 5-6-7 batters, too. Between Kazmir and Fuentes, Jason
Bulger and Kevin Jepsen pitched a scoreless seventh and eighth.

It was actually Kazmir's fourth start as a Halo. Two against King Felix and one against the Chi-Sox. For a pitcher that half the sports punditry said was done, he's not looking so done yet. Nine quality starts in his last ten games. Looks like we got him at just the right time.